With pool season in full swing here in Florida, we've been desperately needing new patio furniture.

The old PVC-pipe special set had seen better days...

You can't see the broken chair and ripped cloth in this picture, but let's just say we were slightly embarassed making our guests sit on them at pool parties.

And so began the hunt for a nice replacement set. We knew we wanted a dining area (with an umbrella) along with a set of lounge chairs. The problem is.... outdoor furniture doesn't come cheap. And with all the other major projects we've got going on around here these days, we needed to keep costs down.

Weeks spent on craigslist yielded no results, and I wasn't really feeling the mid-priced sets at HD and Lowes.

But then... randomly shopping in Target one day, I happened to walk past the outdoor aisle and this beauty caught my eye:

When I went in for a closer look, I was happily surprised to find it was on clearance for $550 for the 5-piece set (4 chairs and table) plus another $100 or so for the umbrella and base. That's still a decent chunk of money, but in the world of rattan patio furniture, it's a steal.

So Brad borrowed his work's truck after work and we got straight to assembly:

After an hour or two of labor, we had this:

Don't you just want to have a dinner party there? I do!

And if we ever miss our old busted furniture, all we have to do is glance to our right...

Because they are now living in our neighbor's yard (yes, they wanted them....)

But our patio set was not complete without the lounge chairs.

Target sold some nice matching chaise lounges, but they were completely sold out (in store and online)... and at $250/piece, I'm not sure I would have wanted them anyway.

So we met up the next evening at one of my all time favorite stores, Garden Ridge.

(I didn't snap any in-store or assembly pics for this, so let's just skip to the good part...)

Here they are!

The chair frames were $100 each (ouch, pricey for GR, I thought), the cushions were $30/ea and the table was $30, for a grand total of $330 with tax. Not a whole lot more than what just one of those rattan lounges would have cost, not too bad!

I think they go with the dining set quite well...

So that's the latest from our backyard. With the temps consistently in the 90's now and only getting hotter, this furniture had better get ready for some usage!